HEIDELBERG, Germany, September 21, 2006 – Based on a poll of readers of the trade journals published by the Ebner Group, solutions and products of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) took the first and second places in the “print” category. At the presentation of the German Printing Industry Innovation Awards in Frankfurt, Heidelberg board member Dr. Jürgen Rautert and Manfred Jurkewitz, who is responsible for research and development at the company, accepted the awards from Bernhard Niemela, the editor-in-chief of the leading German journal for the printing industry, Deutscher Drucker. A majority of the readers of the trade journals published by Ebner Verlag voted for Heidelberg’s “Prinect Inpress Control”, a system for inline color measurement. Heidelberg also took second place, with its Anicolor short inking unit technology. Another Heidelberg product came in second in the media prepress category: the Prinect Integration Sys-tem. “These awards are very gratifying confirmation of the market acceptance of our re-search and development projects,” stressed Rautert. “Also significant is the fact that our customers have positively assessed the importance of these products for their work. And, of course, the awards will increase the motivation of our staff even further.” In addition to the technology kudos, numerous Heidelberg customers won prizes in various categories for work they had submitted. Here is an overview of the lauded products: Prinect Inpress Control gets the press up to color faster while increasing quality and reducing waste. Prinect Inpress Control from Heidelberg is the first system for inline color measurement; it measures color and register in color control bars while the press is running. It significantly reduces unproductive times, because it is no longer necessary to stop the press to perform measurements, and also because it allows on-the-fly checking and adjustment of register. Prinect Inpress Control is only available for the Speedmaster CD 74 and Speedmaster XL 105 press series. A spectrophotometric measurement unit on the last printing unit — in perfector presses, there is another one just before the sheets are reversed — scans the color control bars while the press is running. The system continually relays data on any required corrections to the Prinect P2000 Center for adjustment of the ink zones. This means that the operator no longer has to halt the press during makeready, startup and production to check the print quality. The print run can start faster, and extremely constant and uniform inking and colors are ensured from the first to the last sheet. The benefits of Inpress Control at a glance: • Up to color faster, less waste: makeready and on-the-fly adjustment of inking without pulling sheets • Inline spectral measurement for fine-tuning both process and special colors • Consistently high print quality ensured by continuous monitoring of the production run, resulting in greater customer satisfaction and loyalty • No addition work for correcting register, thanks to automatic monitoring and control of inter-image fit parallel to color measurement • Smaller color bars can be used, granting greater flexibility for assembling sheets and variably positioning the bar anywhere from the leading edge to the middle of the sheet. • Less work for the operator, thanks to touchscreen control at the Prinect CP2000 Center See also the press release “A World's First: Heidelberg Unveils a Measuring Device for Inline Color Measurement” at: http://www.heidelberg.com/www/html/eng/content/articles/press_lounge/products/workflow_management/060223_inpress_control Installed in a Speedmaster SM 52 press, the zoneless Anicolor inking unit that Heidelberg unveiled at IPEX 2006 lets offset print shops produce very short runs with significantly better profit margins without changing their usual work routines. The benefits of this technology at a glance: • High cost-effectiveness, also on very short runs • Startup waste reduced by up to 90 percent • 25 percent more capacity • Uses commercially available plates and inks The Anicolor inking unit developed by Heidelberg permits printing without any ghosting. Thanks to full-format screen and form rollers, precisely the same amount of ink is applied to the plate for every sheet. This ensures absolutely smooth transfer to the stock. The Anicolor inking unit includes a high-performance temperature control sys-tem that makes it effortless to adjust the inking rate to the paper across the entire sheet. Additional innovations in the chamber doctor blade system of the Anicolor inking unit ensure top print quality, very fast ink changes and extremely quick cleaning. The strengths of this revolutionary, trailblazing inking unit can be taken advantage of even more fully by standardizing the printing process. This will benefit all those print shops that are confronted on a daily basis with jobs of just a few hundred copies. This faces many companies with a difficult decision as they wonder how to meet this growing market requirement efficiently and profitably. The alternatives are to use a digital press, which has the drawbacks of constraints on the choice of substrates and high costs for printing long runs, or to opt for offset printing. Anicolor is an option for the Speedmaster SM 52; it will be available for all four-color models beginning in January 2007. See also the press release “Background Information on Anicolor Inking Technology” at: http://www.heidelberg.com/www/html/eng/content/articles/press_lounge/basic_press_texts/whitepaper_anicolor?contentid=188873 The Prinect Integration System enables central data storage within a print shop on the basis of JDF (Job Definition Format). This makes it possible to completely integrate all production processes — spanning order and job management, prepress, the pressroom and finishing — in a workflow management system. The Prinect Integration System collects digital information on business and technical processes in a unified workflow management system. In conjunction with the Prinect Printready System (a workflow management system for prepress) and the new Prinect Pressroom Manager, which are based on the same technology, the Prinect Integration System encompasses all parts of the print shop. This enables complete data consistency across all production processes.